The Nile: A Source of Life — or Death

In 2010, Ethiopia announced its plans to build the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a 6,450MW hydroelectric project located on the Blue Nile just shy of the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Construction began in 2011 and, while the dam is not yet complete, its reservoir was fully filled by late 2023.

The dam, set to be the largest of its kind in Africa, will provide Ethiopia with enough energy to counteract its ongoing power crises, and enable the country to export excess electricity to neighbouring states. The project has, however, been overshadowed by political tensions since its inception, predominantly between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbours, Sudan and Egypt. Although both countries initially opposed the project, Sudan has since adopted a more impartial stance, leaving Egypt as the main opposing force to the GERD. The Nile has provided Egypt with a source of fresh water and fertile land for millennia, something the Egyptian government now believes to be under threat. Due to the project’s size, Egypt argues that the river’s flow will be greatly reduced, a worrying prospect for a nation which relies on the Nile for 90% of its fresh water.

This is, indeed, a serious concern for the Egyptian government, which has mounted considerable diplomatic and military objections to the GERD. Negotiations have been repeatedly attempted and have consistently failed despite the participation of both the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and The White House. Upon the agreement of all parties involved, French consultancy Artelia was contracted to conduct technical studies and evaluate the potential impact of the dam, but none could agree over the findings. Egypt has proposed design modifications, including increased spillways to enhance the through-flow of water and a slower filling time of its reservoir, a minimum of seven years (and according to some sources as many as 21) as opposed to the intended three. Ethiopia, however, has rejected these, considering them an infringement on its national sovereignty. Similarly, Ethiopia’s attempts to placate Egypt have continually failed, and stalemates have become the status quo.

For Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, this issue is one of “life or death for the nation”, and he remains resolute in his rejection of the project. In 2024, and in the most serious escalation of the conflict to date, Egypt threatened military action and deployed troops to neighbouring Somalia. In response, Ethiopia installed anti-aircraft defences at the GERD.

But are Egypt’s reservations justified? The true impact of the dam remains unknown, but the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs contends that even a two percent reduction in water could have catastrophic consequences. The country relies almost entirely on the Nile for its domestic water use and, importantly, commercial agriculture. Even a minor decrease in the flow of water could, according to Egyptian sources, threaten hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.

Whether this proves to be true or not, Egypt’s legal position is weak. It is relying heavily on colonial-era legislation, predominantly a 1929 British-Egyptian deal that granted Egypt and Sudan the right to a certain quantity of water from the Nile. Since a subsequent agreement in 1959, the numbers sit at 55.5 billion cubic metres for Egypt and 18.5 for Sudan. The 1929 deal also gave Egypt the power to veto projects anywhere upstream on the Nile, a controversial stipulation which Ethiopia argues violates its sovereign right to build within its own borders.

Conflict over the Nile is not a new phenomenon, and the very existence of near-hundred-year-old agreements demonstrates this. Egypt and Ethiopia have a long history of conflict, and some view the current crisis as merely the latest chapter in a saga of diplomatic tensions. However, as climate change drives fears over increasingly frequent droughts, water access becomes more vital by the day, and it is crucial to recognise that water remains a key geopolitical flashpoint over which nations are willing to go to war.